July/August Issue 2013
5 Steps to Omnichannel Success
"Omnichannel" is one of the hottest buzzwords in the retail industry right now. Yet while everyone is talking omnichannel, relatively few brands understand what it means, and even fewer have the back-end logistic and fulfillment capabilities to achieve true omnichannel success. To keep pace with the competition, B-to-C and B-to-B brands need to evaluate their capabilities and develop a plan that gets them on track to deliver more authentic omnichannel experiences
Giving Credit Where Credit is Due
Attribution management, the science of calculating the contribution of a marketing touchpoint on conversion, brings science and reason together to answer the age-old question: What caused a customer to make a purchase? The answer to that question plays a significant role in enhancing the quality and effectiveness of interactions that retailers have with customers and prospects, which translates into increased return on investment. Attribution is even more important these days, as corner offices are closely watching marketing teams, which are operating with tighter budgets, to see if spending is being accurately assigned.
GNC Rewards its Loyal Customers With New Member Pricing Program
GNC, the nation's largest specialty retailer of health, wellness and sports nutrition products, launched a new member price program nationwide in April. The rollout of the program followed a nearly two-year test-market campaign in select cities, including Kansas City, Pittsburgh, New York and Chicago. The test campaign yielded higher store traffic, increased revenues and strong margins in those cities, making the decision for GNC to expand the program nationwide an easy one.
How Catalogs Drive Your Business
The printed catalog is the main driver of traffic to the web. However, with all of the other touchpoints available to consumers today, how do we really know the impact of catalog mailings on web sales? And why do we give so much credit to the print catalog? There are a few reasons why, and they include the following:
Is 3-D Printing for Retail for Real?
I have a confession: I think I'm a believer in 3-D printing as a viable option for retailers. It wasn't until this past June, when I attended a session on the intersection of fashion and technology at CEWeek in New York City, that I became a convert. Prior to sitting in on that session at CEWeek, I knew little about 3-D printing — and what I thought I knew now seems out of touch with reality.
Prescriptions for Profitable Pagination
PATIENT: "Doc, my old print catalog staff have retired, and the new young staff don't know catalog techniques like pagination. Can you give me a road map for pagination to share with my staff?"
CATALOG DOCTOR: "I'd be glad to. Pagination is the
Reaction to Marketplace Fairness Act Editor's Note
Here's a sampling of the reaction that we received regarding last issue's Editor's Note, which focused on the highly controversial Marketplace Fairness Act (i.e., the online sales tax law) that's currently being debated in Congress. To view all the letters we received, as well as the full-length versions of the letters printed below, go to RetailOnlineIntegration.com and search under the "The Magazine" tab.
Reconnecting With Old Friends (or Site Visitors)
It's likely you've used behavioral targeting to reach out to and convert shoppers on your website or through display ads. Now, however, with so much of your online marketing occurring on social media sites, wouldn't it also be valuable to reach consumers there with behavioral targeting? And what if you could actually improve your campaign effectiveness by retargeting those same people via social media?
Retail by Appointment
I'm here to see the doc, um, I mean the retailer. How many times in your life have you heard that phrase uttered? Exactly, zero. But that may be changing if AT&T's latest innovation proves successful and goes mainstream.
SEO Campaign Boosts Lenovo's Brand Awareness, Revenues
With demand for "PC plus" products (e.g., smartphones and tablets) growing by the day, Lenovo realized it had a tremendous opportunity at hand to capture market share. The problem was the brand suffered from a lack of awareness within the PC industry, with companies like Dell and HP top of mind for most consumers. To address this problem, Lenovo invested time and resources into improving its SEO.
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
For many retailers, Christmas begins in July with preparations for major site traffic events like Cyber Monday. Will your company's site be ready? The time to find out is now, not when your web servers are overloaded, incoming orders have stopped, and frustrated visitors are abandoning their filled shopping carts and rushing to a competitor's site to buy their gifts.
Why BustedTees’ Acquisition Strategy is No Laughing Matter
The customer acquisition strategy put in place last year by BustedTees, an online retailer of T-shirts that was started by the founders of CollegeHumor.com in 2004, is no joke. The strategy involves placing display ads across the web on targeted sites. When prospects click on the ads, a box pops up that asks for their email address in exchange for a 20 percent discount on their first order.
